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“He’ll wilt,” I laughed, the genuine sound surprising me.

Leopold laughed too.

“I can leave you alone to dry off if you want,” he offered.

“No,” I said. The word shot off my tongue too fast. It sounded too eager. Too desperate.

“Okay, I’ll stay,” he said. “I’m right here. Do you need another towel?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to think about how much my brain had changed now that I was back in ‘civilization.’ A fox should feel safe being in the bathroom alone. It wasn’t like the undead were here. They were locked behind a door. Hell, maybe the door was gone by now.

“Here you go,” Leopold said and I cracked the door to grab the towel. “Do you want me to hold him? Does he want to be held? Drying off one-handed…”

“We can try,” I said, opening the door a little more. Like most shifters I met in my lifetime, I wasn’t modest. In fox form we all ran around with our furry sheaths exposed all the time anyway. Our eyes met when I opened the shower door. Leopold blushed and for a second every emotion a fox could possibly feel zapped through me. I was aroused and felt bad for making him blush. I was terrified that living in the land of the undead had changed me too much to be around people but over the moon that another shifter was here. Everything inside me was ragged glass at the fact my friends and family would never meet Leopold, but a tiny bit of me was a soft, gushy center that both Spinach and I had made it out alive together.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the towel and passing off Spinach. He was all bundled up like a little purrito and my heart flipflopped when he let me slide him into Leopold’s arms. He buried his little, wet orange face into my mate’s chest. Leopold rocked with him and for a moment I stared at them. I couldn’t pull my gaze away. He was going to be a great dad. I opened my mouth to ask if he wanted children, but no words came out. How could I even think about children right now? After everything.

“Because we need to feel alive. Knowing there is a next generation is life changing,” my fox said into my thoughts.

“I want to kiss you.” Those were the words that rolled off my tongue instead of any probing questions. We’d know all about each other soon enough. It only took two soul bites to transfer a near lifetime of information and emotions.

“I… I’d like that. Are you okay? Do you need a nap or more food or… Oh! Shit! Do I need to call a healer?” the questions rolled off his tongue.

I shook my head.

“Maybe… Maybe later,” I said. “Maybe sooner if Spinach doesn’t feel better soon. I think he’s just tired, though. I…”

Still holding Spinach like a baby, Leopold stepped closer to the open shower door. The bathroom was still steamy from our devouring the hot water to scour the dirt from our bodies. I clutched the towel in both hands as my omega rose on his tiptoes and his lips brushed against mine. That’s all it took. That’s all I could handle. I dropped the towel onto the shower floor and pulled him into my arms. Between us, Spinach all bundled up and warm, purred. Leopold wrapped his free arm around my neck as our lips crashed together. His warm, supple lips parted under mine allowing my tongue to sink into the safe harbor of his mouth. I kissed him like he was oxygen and after all the time I spent alone with my cat maybe he was.

Kissing him was the first time I felt alive in… I couldn’t remember the last time I felt alive. For over a year, it was just running, foraging, and hunting. A year of just hoping that we’d run into someone else or find a fur-damned Other World gateway.

“I need you,” I whispered. “I need you so much. I don’t know how much courting is the usual here. Back home it can vary, but I need you so fucking bad.”

“I’m right here,” Leopold whispered against my lips, his hand gripping the back of my neck for dear life. He pulled me down a little bit, so that our foreheads were pressed together. “I’m right here, Arken. You’re safe. The four of us are here and nothing wants to eat us. We’re safe.”

I kissed him again, harder this time. I kissed him as if I might die if our tongues stopped dancing between our mouths and maybe I would. Maybe this was all some death-delirium dream and I was really laying on the barren forest floor dying. Only Leopold’s smell was too real. His touch too solid. His tongue danced with mine and my dick throbbed hard as each breath I took pulled his scent down deeper into my lungs.

“Mine,” he growled against my lips. “Safe and all mine.”

Spinach mewed and wiggled inside his towel burrito. We both laughed and Leopold carefully unwrapped him and set him down gently on the green bath mat. He sniffed the fox who was my mate’s familiar and the fox sniffed him back. Then they looked at each other expressionless for a long moment before darting off through the house together.

“I think they’re going to raid the chicken hearts,” Leopold laughed, wrapping both of his hands around my neck. I pulled him close and my hands found the full, round globes of his ass. My fingers worked those glorious muscles as our lips found their way back to each other for another long, hard kiss. My heart thrummed against my rib cage and my fox glided against my insides in a vain effort to reach out for his mate who lived inside of Leopold. They wouldn’t connect properly until we exchanged soul bites.

Without Spinach between us, Leopold wasn’t as shy. One of his hands dropped from my neck and slid between our bodies. His soft, warm fingers wrapped around my dick, and I died a little inside. Okay, a lot. For a moment, I struggled against everything inside myself not to cum right then and there. I couldn’t recall the last time someone else had touched me like that. Before the end of my world. Maybe longer. Shit! It didn’t matter. None of that mattered right now. I couldn’t let it matter or I might really crash into the floor and not get back up. I had to stay upright for as long as possible. I had to stay in the real, solid world with my omega because retreating into myself would only be reliving the worst years of my life and I refused to do that. I refused to let that fucking curse take this moment from me too.

My breath hitched in my throat when Leopold squeezed and the jolt of lightning his touch brought on kept me squarely in the moment. I kissed him harder. So hard that his teeth grazed against my lips and I still didn’t stop. My adrenaline was too high to feel the pangs of teeth against flesh even when I tasted copper in our kiss. Leopold kept kissing and stroking me and that’s all that mattered. His warm hand glided over me again and again. My breaths came in ragged heaves unused to the pleasure or pressure of another shifter body pressed so hard and close against mine.

His tongue twirled around mine as his fist pumped fast over my dick. Everything inside me yelled for release. My balls drew up tight to my body, and I couldn’t hold back anymore. Leopold was pumping his fist so fast and hard that he must’ve wanted me to cum. So, I did. For the first time in years, I let my guard down. A growl tore from deep within my chest as my dick twitched and spilt my warm, sticky seed all over his hand and the shower floor. He kept stroking and pumping until there wasn’t a drop left inside me to milk out. We still kissed. Even as I panted in post-orgasmic bliss, we kissed hard.

He broke the kiss only long enough to strip out of his pants. Then he stepped forward into the shower with me. He kicked the towel I dropped earlier out and slid the door shut. Inside the shower, his scent clung to the humid air and invaded my lungs. The smell of him, warm, furry, and slick with arousal hit me squarely between the legs. I’d just came but it didn’t matter. I’d be hard again soon. Survival or the magic of mates just meeting? I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He was all that mattered right now. As long as he was here with me, I’d survive. I’d keep surviving.

“Water or no water?” he asked.

“Water,” I nodded and he reached behind me turning the shower back on. It was warm but not nearly as hot as the water I’d used to scrub myself and Spinach down. Not as hot as the water I used to wash the dirt down the drain.

“Stay with me,” my omega said as if he sensed my thoughts wandering off again.

“I’m here,” I said. “I’m here with you. You smell so good. You’re so fucking beautiful. You’re here.”